Wider strikes are needed to restore balance, says McManus

The union movement will push a Labor government to ensure that workers can take industry-wide strike action as part of a promised revamp of bargaining laws.

Labor has promised to take a policy to allow bargaining in certain sector across a number of employers – a practise known as pattern bargaining – to the next election but has declined to spell out if it will allow strikes as part of that reform.

Sally McManus, Secretary of the Australian Council Trade Unions (ACTU).Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) national secretary Sally McManus said on Friday that any such policy would need to include the ability for workers to take strike action in support of their demands.

Employers have warned that the move could see a return to the industrial strife seen in the last century when whole industries were wracked by strikes but Ms McManus said the move was needed to reflect changes in the economy which had made single enterprise bargaining much less effective.

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Ms McManus said that Labor had recognised that situation and that another method of setting wages and conditions was needed beyond sector-wide awards and business-specific agreements.

"There needs to be other options, they need to be available when enterprise bargaining isn't available," she told the Melbourne Press Club on Friday, adding that examples could include long supply chains where wages were set a long way up a commercial chain from the individual worker.

If you don't have strikes as part of your bargaining tools, you're in a much weaker bargaining position.

Sally McManus

"Industrial action has to be available for multi [business] bargaining just as it is available for enterprise bargaining. If you don't have strikes as part of your bargaining tools, you're in a much weaker bargaining position."

As part of that, strikes would be needed as a "last resort", she said.

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"No-one wants to take strike action and usually even just having it as a right means there's more likely to be agreements made and agreements [made] without having to [walk out]."

Strikes are not permitted as part of the award-setting process.

Ms McManus dismissed government criticism as a scare campaign, saying other developed countries which had multi-enterprise bargaining did not have any greater rate of strikes.

She dismissed concerns from the government and business leaders about the potential for disruption.

"It's not the 1970s ... we've got a totally different labour market, we're open to the world," she said.

"It won't got back to those days, it just won't."

Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O'Dwyer said the union push for strike action as part of pattern bargaining would disrupt the economy.

"Industry-wide strikes have the potential to cripple large parts of Australia's economy, reducing growth and costing jobs," Ms O'Dwyer said.